This invention relates to athletic socks formed on circular knitting machines and more particularly to athletic socks having a knitted-in, cushioned shin area. The invention is also directed to the technique for forming such a type of athletic sock on circular, single drum, single feed knitting machines in which diametrically opposed cushioned areas are being formed in longitudinally spaced portions of the sock, i.e. the sole and the shin.
In certain athletic activities, such as soccer, the legs of the participants are subjected to abuse, and as a result bruises and scrapes may occur, particularly on the shin areas. Therefore, the present invention is concerned with providing an athletic sock In combination with the cushioned shin area, having a cushioned shin area; and in a preferred embodiment, the sole of the sock is also cushioned, and the rear half of the leg portion is formed with a ribbed, support construction.
At first impression, it may seem to the casual observor of ordinary skill in the art that such construction might be simple to accomplish. The fact of the matter is, to the knowledge of the inventors, there is no conventional knitting technique available for single drum, single feed circular knitting machines, whereby one may provide terry loops in one diametrical half of a tubular knit article in one longitudinal portion, then provide terry loops in the opposite diametrical half of the tubular garment in another linear portion. The conventional method for forming terry loops on a circular knitting machine is by the utilization and manipulation of terry sinkers which are controlled by cams in the sinker cap to radially position selected sinkers in a course for terry stitches throughout out a prescribed number of courses, and then withdraw the terry sinkers, so that only the main portion of the sinker is utilized in forming non-terry stitches throughout other courses in the garment. Therefore, if one wanted to form terry loops in complete courses throughout a prescribed number of courses, and then form terry loops only in a selected portion of courses throughout another selected group of courses, this would be possible according to conventional techniques. However, the problem occurs when, as in the type of sock described, the operator wants to form terry loops in a first prescribed diametrical area of certain courses, and then provide terry loops in a second diametrical area of other courses, as in the sock described above. There is no conventional technique available for accomplishing this type of construction on simple single feed, single drum circular knitting machines.
Therefore, in the present invention, in addition to the conventional terry loop forming technique for forming terry loops in the sole portion of the sock, there must also be provided a technique for forming terry loops in the shin or front portion of the sock, while the rear area is free of terry loops.
In the set up according to the present invention, all sinkers in the sinker cap are double throated (terry) sinkers. In the portion of the sinker cap corresponding to the sole of the sock, the sinkers have long butts, and in the opposite side of the sinker cap, the double throated sinkers have short butts. During the formation of the sole portion of the sock, according to conventional techniques, the long butted, double throat sinkers are activated, while the short butt sinkers remain retracted, so that the loops are formed over the sinker edge and not in the upper throat. This is a conventional technique and does not have to be explained further herein.
What is non-conventional, however, is that since the terry in the shin or front portion of the sock is formed by the needles and sinkers on the opposite half of the needle cylinder, the terry sinkers corresponding to these needles cannot be activated by the sinker cap without also activating the long butt sinkers in the first half of the sinker cap corresponding to the rear leg portion. Therefore, according to the present invention, by feed and needle manipulation alone, the needles corresponding to the shin or front area must be lifted to grasp both the terry yarn and the both yarn, while the lifting of the needles for the rear leg area must be limited to the extent that they are not elevated high enough to reach the terry yarn, and only the body yarn is pulled down.
The aforementioned needle manipulation is accomplished by utilizing a special cam upstream of the lifting cam which moves in front of and overrides the action of the auxiliary side cam. The special cam lifts both long and short butt needles to an intermediate level, above the tuck level, where the short butt needles are high enough to grasp the body yarn but not the terry yarn. The lifting cam is partially retracted at this time so that it clears the short butt needles and lifts only the long butt needles to an uppermost level to grasp terry yarn. The short butt needles, meanwhile, pass thereby and remain in the intermediate level. The center cam then lowers both the long butt and the short butt needles forming both yarns into loops which are drawn down over the sinkers, the terry yarn being drawn over the upper throat and the body yarn over the sinker edge.
A special offset feed finger for the terry yarn must be provided which feeds the terry yarn to the long butt needles at a point upstream of and above the point of feeding of the body yarn. In other words the terry yarn must be fed prior to the time that the center cam begins to pull the long butt needles down, otherwise the long butt needles would pass under the terry yarn thus missing them.
As the leg portion is completed, the special cam is deactivated and the conventional auxiliary side cam is again in the path of all needle butts. The lifting cam is again returned to its fully extended position where it engages and lifts all needles to the upper stitch level.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved athletic sock having a cushioned shin area.
It is another object of the present to provide a method and apparatus for forming the athletic sock on a single drum, single feed, circular knitting machine.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method of forming a circular garment on a single feed, single drum knitting machine which has terry loops in diametrically opposed areas of longitudinal discrete portions.